1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for combining conveyor streams on a conveying technology element having a number of ingoing conveyor segments, at least one coupling to an outgoing conveyor segment on which the ingoing conveyor segments are brought together, and a number of holding devices for holding a conveyor flow on the ingoing conveyor segments. The invention further relates to a conveying technology element for combining conveyor streams comprising a number of ingoing conveyor segments, at least one coupling for an outgoing conveyor segment on which the ingoing conveyor segments are brought together, and a number of holding devices for holding a conveyor flow on the ingoing conveyor segments, Finally, the invention also relates to a conveyor system having a number of such conveying technology elements, in which at least one coupling for an outgoing conveyor segment of one conveying technology element is directly or indirectly connected to an ingoing conveyor segment of another conveying technology element.
2. Description of the Related Art
A method, a conveying technology element and a conveyor system of said type are basically known. On this basis, a number of ingoing conveyor streams are held on a conveying technology element when necessary and forwarded to one or more outgoing conveyor streams in order to direct conveyed objects in a specified manner to one or more destinations. As a rule, a higher-ranking controller manages a series of picking orders and activates the elements of the conveyor system so that the conveyed objects assigned to a destination (e.g. a picking work station) are taken out of a store and transported to said destination, in particular in a predefined series or sequence. To this end, sensors are provided along the conveyor line, which log the passing conveyed objects and notify the higher-ranking controller so that the latter has information about which conveyed object is where at any one time and how the conveyor system should be activated on this basis. Especially in situations where there is a large number of destinations to be supplied and many types of objects to be transported, the result is a complex task in control terms, which makes operation and in particular activation of a conveyor system difficult.
Based on a simple embodiment of such a controller, a conveyed object passing such a sensor can initiate (“trigger”) the release of the ingoing conveyor stream on a conveying technology element. However, this simplified method results in only a modest rate of throughput through the conveyor system and hence to only a small number of orders handled per unit of time.